Up the Hill and Over eBook

He could say nothing, do nothing. He dared not
even touch the dark, bent head. But we may well
pity him as he watched her.

The girl’s sobbing wore itself out and presently
she lifted tear-drenched eyes, like the blue of the
sky after rain. Her tragic, unnatural composure
had all been wept away.

“I understand—­now,” she faltered.
“Before, I didn’t. I thought dreadful
things. I thought that I—­that you—­oh,
I couldn’t bear the things I thought! But
it’s better now. You did love me—­didn’t
you?”

“Before God—­yes!”

She went on dreamily. “It would have been
too terrible if you hadn’t—­if you
had just pretended—­had been amusing yourself—­been
false and base. But I felt all along that you
were never that. I knew there must be some explanation
and it didn’t seem wrong to ask. Instead
of pretending that I didn’t know all the things
you had not time to say. Forgive me for ever
doubting that you were brave and good.”

“Spare me—­”

She was not yet old enough to understand the tragic
appeal. For she leaned nearer, laying her soft
hand over his clenched ones.

“It is all so very, very sad,” she said
with quaint simplicity which was part of her, “but
not so bad—­oh, not nearly so bad as if you
had been pretending—­or I mistaken.
Think!—­How terrible to give one’s
love unworthily or unasked!”

“But you do not love me,” he burst out,
“you cannot! You must not!”

Never had he seen her eyes so sweet, so dark.

“I do love you. And I honour you above
all men.”

Before he could prevent her, she had stooped—­her
lips brushed his hand.

“Oh, my Dear!”—­He had reached
the limit of his strength—­instant flight
alone remained if he would keep the precious flower
of her trust. And she, too, was trembling.
But in the soft starlight they looked into each other’s
eyes, and what they saw there helped. Their hands
clasped, but in that moment of parting neither thought
of self, so both were strong.

CHAPTER XXVII

Mrs. Sykes thought much about her boarder in those
days and, for a wonder, said very little. Gossip
as she was, she could, in the service of one she liked,
be both wise and reticent. Perhaps she knew that
oracles are valued partly for their silences.
At any rate her prestige suffered nothing, for the
less she said, the more certain Coombe became that
she could, if she would, say a great deal. Of
course her pretence of seeing nothing unusual in the
doctor’s engagement was simply absurd.
Coombe felt sure that like the pig-baby in “Alice,”
she only did it “to annoy because she knows
it teases.”

One by one the most expert gossips of the town charged
down upon the doctor’s landlady and one by one
they returned defeated.